Along an assembly line, various types of articles, such as diapers and other absorbent articles, may be assembled by adding components to and/or otherwise modifying an advancing, continuous web of material. In some processes, advancing webs of material are combined with other advancing webs of material. In other processes, individual components created from advancing webs of material are combined with advancing webs of material, which in turn, are then combined with other advancing webs of material. In some cases, individual components created from advancing web or webs are combined with other individual components created from other advancing web or webs. Webs of material and component parts used to manufacture diapers may include: backsheets, topsheets, leg cuffs, waist bands, absorbent core components, front and/or back ears, fastening components, and various types of elastic webs and components such as leg elastics, barrier leg cuff elastics, stretch side panels, and waist elastics. Once the desired component parts are assembled, the advancing webs and component parts are subjected to a final knife cut to separate the webs into discrete diapers or other absorbent articles.
With reference to FIG. 1A, in some converting processes, discrete chassis 14 spaced apart from each other are advanced in a machine direction MD and are arranged with a longitudinal centerline 16 parallel with the cross direction CD. The discrete chassis 14 may be positioned such that a lateral centerline 18 of the chassis 14 is aligned with a machine direction centerline MDC. Opposing waist regions of the discrete chassis 14 may be joined with continuous lengths of elastically extendable front and back waistband webs advancing in the machine direction. While connected with the chassis 14, the front and back waistband webs may be maintained in a fully stretched condition along the machine direction MD, forming a continuous length of absorbent articles. The continuous length of absorbent articles may then be folded in a cross direction CD. During the folding process in some converting configurations, one of the front and back waistband webs is folded 180° into a facing relationship with the opposing waistband. The continuous length of absorbent articles may be cut into discrete absorbent articles 10, such as shown in FIG. 1A, and advanced to a packaging operation.
As a result of folding the absorbent articles 10 180° in the cross direction CD, in some converting configurations, a center 12 of the folded, discrete absorbent article 10 is offset from the machine direction centerline MDC as shown in FIG. 1B. In some processes, it may be necessary to rotate the folded, discrete absorbent article 10 in order to change the orientation of the discrete absorbent article 10 for downstream processing, such as packaging. However, some processes for rotating a discrete absorbent article 10 are configured to rotate the discrete absorbent article 10 about the center 12 of the discrete absorbent article 10 as shown in FIGS. 1B-1D. As a result, the center 12 of the folded discrete absorbent article 10 may be offset from the machine direction centerline MDC as shown in FIG. 1D. Consequently, it may be necessary to position downstream equipment off center from the machine direction centerline MDC in order to advance the folded discrete absorbent articles 10 along a centerline of the downstream equipment. However, due to size and space constraints in some converting operations, it may not be feasible to position equipment away from the machine direction centerline MDC.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide a process and apparatus for rotating and shifting a discrete absorbent article such that the discrete absorbent article is aligned with a machine direction centerline.